06) MORE CLIMATE CHANGE WARNINGS

People's Voice Editorial

     Natural disasters linked to the process of climate change forced 32.4 million people from their homes in 2012, with floods and storms causing 98 percent of the displacement, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). That total was almost double the 2011 number.

     The two most catastrophic events of 2012 were the monsoon floods which uprooted 6.9 million people in India's northeast, and 6.1 million people in Nigeria displaced by widespread flooding in the rainy season. Over the past five years, some 144 million people have had to leave their homes because of natural disasters. While the figures vary from year to year, the numbers are expected to rise in line with global trends that make people more vulnerable, and most of those affected live in the most poverty-stricken countries.

     Two urgent messages must be grasped from this situation.

     First, vast resources which could be used to prevent natural disasters or protect the victims, are instead wasted on the profit-driven expansion of militarism. Humanity simply cannot afford to spend a trillion dollars a year on new generations of fighter-bombers and other weapons of death.

     Second, the expanding emissions of greenhouse gases must be reversed. To those who say this will "cost jobs", our answer is that we need an economy which puts people and the environment ahead of private profits. The creation of a truly green economy, based on social ownership of resources and industries, and democratic planning, is needed to tackle the huge problems facing our planet.

     Simply put, the imperialist division of the planet, and the capitalist drive to extract maximum profits from workers, are incompatible with human survival. The latest figures on displacement make it clear that we are running out of time to change this terrifying picture.

(The above article is from the May 16-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)